Night Baseball

In Indianapolis one night last week, big floodlights poured metallic glare over a baseball field under a pitchblack sky and the Cincinnati "Reds" played an exhibition game with the Indianapolis "Indians." It was the first night game ever played by a major league team. The lights turned the field to a vividly unreal color, like grass in a postcard, against which the figures of the players stood out sharply three-dimensional. Both teams were hitting well but the red-legged fielders were uncertain judging distances and fumbled. In the fourth Bob Meusel struck out with the bases full. Cincinnati was leading in the last half of the seventh when the Indians made eight runs on four hits, three walks and an error. Final score: Indianapolis 17, Cincinnati 5.

Officials went home saying they were pleased. For months big league clubs have been considering night baseball-- ever since Des Moines played Wichita under floodlights in May. Soon Springfield, Bloomington and Quincy took the idea up, and for a while it added to their attendance. Said Lee Keyser, president of the Des Moines club: "It is glorious and wonderful. It means that baseball in the minor leagues will now live. . . ."

Although keenly interested in minor league night games, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, tsar of baseball, realizes that major-league owners are facing a different problem. President Lee Keyser had pitched his floodlights around his field because he could not get large crowds to go to games in the daytime. Some critics believe that while businessmen in minor-league towns cannot leave their work in the afternoon, businessmen in big cities, who can leave, go to ball games even when they ought not to, principally for the fun of being irresponsible.

Other objections to night games in the big leagues: 1) In the eastern daylight-saving cities it is not pitch dark until after 9 p. m. most of the summer. Because teams must warm up before starting and because lights are useless except in pitch dark, games will not start till 9:30, finishing near midnight--too late for most fans. 2) Every team would have to spend some of the increased revenue from night games in buying new players enough to have two teams--one for days, one for nights. Once they were used to one set of conditions, players could not switch from one team to the other. 3) All old-time managers, opposed to change on principle, dislike the experiment, say it "sounds the knell of baseball." Of the 16 big league managers, only two, Gabby Street, St. Louis "Cards" and Dan Howley, Cincinnati "Reds," are slightly interested.

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